Abstract Red
by Jateshi
Summary: He's different from the rest of his family Sirius is crimson where they're all hemmed with emerald and that's more than fine. Red is a good colour, one he likes. [mild PG, SiriusxRemus]


**Title**: Abstract Red  
**Author**: Jateshi  
**Pairing**: Sirius/Remus  
**Rating**: PG for the fact that there's kissing and mentions of possible wanking. (Not like that, though)  
**Word Count**: 1,150  
**Warnings**: Mentions of the kind of hair-pulling abuse one kid does to another. Two men kissing (briefly) at the end. Odd metaphors which might not make a lot of coherent sense.  
**Disclaimer**: I still haven't managed to become the owner of any rights pertaining to Harry Potter - they still all belong to the lovely J. K. Rowling. I'm merely a college student with enough packets of ramen in my hands to eat dinner tonight - no suing, even if you want my ramen. The ramen is mine while Sirius and Remus are Rowling's.  
**Summary**: _Done for the 30-kisses challenge and using prompt #19 - red._ He's different from the rest of his family - Sirius is crimson where they're all hemmed with emerald - and that's more than fine. Red is a good colour, one he likes.

**Abstract Red**

Everything in life could be translated from an abstract concept - like devotion or fear - into a colour. It was a hard thing to apply to every last bit about life, and not something two people agreed on, but the most _basic_ bits of life (at least) could be turned into colours.

Figuring that out wasn't an earth-shattering revelation, like it was when Sirius figured out that pulling his visiting cousin's hair always resulted in any of them (whichever one he was pulling the hair on) running out of the room. To be fair, pulling on their hair also resulted in a stern lecture from his father on proper behaviour and the ways that he, as the heir to the Black family, was expected to act, but in the short term it got whoever was bothering him out of the room. It really worked best when they put their hair in pigtails (Sirius figured this out as time wore on, and also before they started getting practice wands for their birthday) because that always gave him a better target to grab and yank on; when they had practice wands, Sirius knew it was time to find a new way of driving them away. Taking the two things - the idea of pulling on a girl's hair and that abstract concepts could be turned into colours - and comparing them, the hair-pulling was far more important. But the way of looking at things - as colours - never quite left the back of Sirius' mind.

When he looked back on his family and his life at the grand and wizened age of seventeen, the idea grew in import. He could see, when he looked back, that for centuries the Black family pride had been illustrated by generations of silver and green. From the infamously-unpopular Headmaster of Hogwarts, Phineas Black, to Sirius' own uncle, Alphard Black, the proud family had been an unbroken tapestry. It was always framed by silver threads for the warp and green threads for the weft, with each individual personality making its presence known through vibrant, embellishing threads.

He rather fancied one of his cousins, Bellatrix, as a ratty and frayed moss-green thread. She'd started out as a fairly normal (for a Black) girl but as time had passed, Sirius rather thought she took after the more eccentric side of their family - the one which considered beheading a House Elf a _good_ thing. Bella's mind seemed unstable enough to be a badly-spun yarn, threatening to snap if too much pressure bore-down on a particularly weak spot. One of the other cousins, Narcissa, was more like a strand of fine, imported silk; her personality matched the rest of the family's but, because of her coloration, she seemed like something exotic mixed in with the rest of them.

Unlike the rest of his kin, Sirius wasn't woven into the family tapestry and hedged-in with silver and green. Some time when he was a child (between pulling his any one of his cousin's hair and trying to sneak into his father's library and take the man's wand), Sirius' thread had worked its way out of the confines of his history. He'd latched onto a new tapestry after crossing the threshold of Hogwart's grand doors - on the outside he was a Black, right down to his ebony hair and grey eyes which were a shade lighter than his younger brother's, but inside he was something radically different.

With a flourish Sirius flipped the crimson and gold tie tail up, slipping it under another loop of silk. Holding the knot in place at his collar, Sirius pulled the tail until the spare silk had migrated, leaving the knot snug against the crisp Oxford shirt, Sirius tucking the tie under his jumper. Smoothing the whole ensemble with a hand, fingers running out any creases on his uniform, he smiled at the mirror.

The mirror, which was the only one in Gryffindor Tower in the boy's dorms enchanted as a woman, sighed.

Red was a good colour, no matter what shade of the hue it was. From the rustiest, dirtiest red, to the kind which looked like freshly-spilled blood, red was a good colour. It didn't necessarily match his hair, or his eyes, and it certainly didn't fit with the rest of his family but red was _good_. Red was the warmest bit of sunlight falling through the stain-glass window on the fifth floor, bathing the stones in its rich hue, and it was the most complex of all emotions - love. Sirius was a red thread, a brilliant shade of crimson with all the variegations the encompassing word of 'red' possessed. Unlike the rest of his family - those silver and green threaded Blacks - he was a part of the crimson and gold tapestry which held the identity (both past and present) of Gryffindor.

"If you keep looking at the mirror like that, Padfoot, you'll never make it to class." The voice was just on the side of his ear, accompanied by warm amber eyes and a head of rusty brown hair resting against his shoulder. "And anyways, Pads, you're almost too late for breakfast."

The mirror gave another happy little sigh as Sirius, with reflexes honed by years as a master of running away from the scene of a prank, spun around and placed a jaunty kiss on Remus' lips before the boy could say anything else.

It was one thing to ponder the nature of his life - that he could do when James was snoring too loudly or Peter had forgotten a Silencing Charm when he decided to wank. It was another thing to ponder the nature of life when he had a chance to kiss his shy boyfriend - he'd have to be insane to put pondering the meaning of life before kissing his boyfriend. And since Sirius prided himself on being the most sane Black since the family had begun, he looped one arm around Remus' waist and pulled the boy further into their kiss.

It helped that Remus turned a delightful shade of red when James broke them apart, Peter adding to the new uproar by tossing a pillow at the pair. Remus stuttered something hasty about tripping on a stray book (he was almost a perfect match for the Gryffindor crimson on his uniform, by this time) and Sirius ever-so-helpfully catching him before he hit the floor, going so far as to jab Sirius in the side when the boy didn't offer up immediate agreement. Sirius just ran a hand through his hair and smiled at the three boys, offering a shrug when James and Peter both tried to get a story out of him.

Remus was still sporting pinked cheeks when Sirius grabbed his hand as the foursome left the dorm, heading as a group to their first class of the day.

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End file.
